Xmas security alert Thailand

AM - Tuesday, 7 December , 2004 08:25:13
Reporter: Peter Lloyd

TONY EASTLEY: Thailand, a popular destination for Australian tourists,
is developing a reputation for being the most violent-prone nation in
South East Asia, and with a peak tourist period approaching,
authorities are stepping up their security efforts.

Intelligence agents are watching out for members of the regional
terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiah, particularly concerned about their
involvement in southern Thailand.

Tensions have been running high in the Muslim south, with authorities
bracing for retaliatory attacks for the mass suffocation of Muslim
demonstrators held in custody in late October.

This report from South East Asia Correspondent, Peter Lloyd.

PETER LLOYD: In central Bangkok a uniformed police officer armed with
an M16 rifle carries out a car boot search at a driveway security
checkpoint. It is part of upgraded security measures at some prominent
five star hotels popular with western holidaymakers during this, the
peak tourist season in the Kingdom.

So far the violence has been happening far away in Thailand's three
Muslim dominated southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat,
which have been the scene for a revival of a century old Islamic
separatist movement.

In large part the insurgency is regarded as a homegrown affair, but the
sometimes brutal response of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
Government has been blamed for radicalising younger Muslims, perhaps
even driving them into the arms of extreme Islamic movements like
Jemaah Islamiah.

(sound of gunfire)

First there was the security forces storming on an historic mosque in
April which led to the deaths of dozens of Muslim men inside. Then in
October, the shooting and suffocation of 87 Muslim demonstrators in the
small township of Tak Bai. Most the dead had been loaded facedown and
piled one on top of the other on the back of army trucks. It brought
the death toll from violence in the south this year to more than 500,
and reportedly prompted US and Israeli intelligence to warn that a
reprisal attack would be carried out in response.

The Tak Bai incident may at least have provided Thai intelligence with
firm evidence of the involvement of foreign extremists in their
domestic affairs.

Some of those who died have not been identified, nor have their bodies
been claimed. It is suspected that they may be Indonesian nationals.

It's understood that dozens of Indonesian students at religious schools
in southern Thailand are under surveillance, and suspicion of
membership of Jemaah Islamiah.

Former government adviser and security analyst, Panitan Wattanayagorn,
from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, says the insurgency has become
more sophisticated.

PANITAN WATTANAYAGORN: The profile of the attack are quite
sophisticated, as compared to the last few years. They are highly
mobile, they are highly flexible, they are combining the guerrilla
warfares and urban warfares, they are using a much better communication
and control, you know, gears.

They are, of course, communicated very effectively. They also have
money to run these kind of operations in various areas. This is the
area of 10,000 square kilometres, and they can communicate quite
quickly. They inducted new approaches every time when the authority try
to counter, or try to attack them.

PETER LLOYD: Last weekend, the Thai Government countered in bizarre
style, dropping 120 million origami folded paper birds during a
day-long aerial bombardment of the region. Thai people from all walks
of life had contributed to the mass paper folding campaign for peace.

But in a sign of the growing divide between the Buddhist north and
Muslim south, some birds carried messages of hate: one said simply, "I
want to kill militants".

In Bangkok, this is Peter Lloyd reporting for AM.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1259441.htm